HCT Asia-Pacific Decider Match Clarification

We’d like to provide more clarity regarding a technical issue which required a re-game in the 2018 HCT Asia-Pacific Fall Playoffs decider match between Akumaker and Sequinox.

During the first game, we discovered that caster audio—without the 15-minute broadcast delay—could have been heard by one or both players during the game. While the initial report was brought to our attention by the venue admin in Melbourne, the lead admin team independently verified that this was a technical issue that occurred at both venues. Once identified, the problem was resolved from the source of the broadcast in Burbank, CA. In order to preserve competitive integrity, the lead admin team invalidated the result of the game and issued a ruling to re-play it. No players or venue admins were involved in this ruling; the decision was made by the lead admin in the broadcast studio in consultation with members of the Blizzard Hearthstone esports team.

We are evaluating our processes to ensure we minimize opportunities for issues like this to occur in the future, as well as to establish better procedures for addressing such issues with the players and public.